Good Girl Full Of Poor Choices, Bad Behavior

August 16, 2002|By Laura Kelly Staff writer

The Good Girl is the kind of film that leads its viewers toward an assumed ending, and then nonchalantly yanks them into a bitter tailspin. It's best classified as an admirable wannabe of those films that find humor in the disturbing, like the squeamishly funny efforts of Todd Solondz or Neil LaBute.

This vicious little number, with the surreal pacing and cynical attitude of Ghost World, is from the writer-director team of Chuck and Buck, a better and disturbing tale of a friendship that takes a few uncomfortable turns. Like Solondz and gang, writer Mike White and director Miguel Arteta prey on the dysfunctional, mining their laughs from a wasteland of barren lives, all bleached into a tired dung-gray by our vapid consumer culture.

Jennifer Aniston plays Justine, a small-town woman who married out of laziness and now spends her days despising her pot-smoking husband while avoiding any real work at her job as a budget-store cashier. Her scowls lessen when she's distracted by the attentions of a brooding and lovesick younger man.

It's an easy call to see Aniston making a calculated move away from her television persona as well as failed big-screen efforts such as The Object of My Affection and Picture Perfect. (Her excellent turn in Office Space is excluded.) She succeeds, in part. We certainly see a whiny, self-hating, world-hating loser. Justine is out for the piece of the pie she thinks she's been cheated out of by her own poor life choices. But even as Aniston is winning laughs from the dark humor surrounding her character, there's this nagging feeling that she really doesn't get it. Like Justine, Aniston would rather just be gliding through, not overcoming a challenging role.

Lucky girl, that Jennifer, and I'm not talking about real-life hubby Brad Pitt. She has surrounded herself with acting muscle that takes the pressure off her performance. Up-and-comer Jake Gyllenhaal amazes as her obsessive, Holden Caulfield-loving boy toy. As hubby Phil, scrunchy-faced John C. Reilly wanders dazed and confused through entire scenes and then illuminates his character in flashes of sad, cuckolded brilliance. Tim Blake Nelson (O, Brother Where Art Thou?) hands in a creepy, too-real turn as a man lusting after his best friend's wife. Even lesser characters, like Justine's batty co-worker (one of my faves, Zooey Deschanel), offer their pained existences to comic scrutiny.

This film has plenty of bad attitude for sale, but the black humor only delivers sporadically on the laughs. The Good Girl's real goods, if you're looking to buy, are in its characters.

Laura Kelly can be reached at 954-356-4889 or lkelly@sun-sentinel.com.